T  m  i : 


TWO   NATIONS: 


TO    Tilt 


H1ST0M  OF  THE  AMERICAN  WAR. 


EDWAIID   A.  POLtARD, 

XPl  IIOK    Of    "  rn 


\\  J  C  !l  >r  <  >  X  D: 

a^t:r,des    Sz.    wade 


George  Washington  Flowers 
Memorial  Collection 

DUKE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 


ESTABLISHED  BY  THE 

FAMILY  OF 

COLONEL  FLOWERS 


THE 


m 


TWO    NATIONS: 


A.    KEY 


TO    T!7E 


HISTORY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  WAR. 


EV 


EDWAKD  A.  POLLAED, 

AUTHOR    OF    "THE    FIRST    AND    8EC0XD    YEARS    OF    THE    f 


RICHMOND: 

A^IRES     Sc     "WADE. 

1864. 


THE  TWO  NATIONS. 


It  has  been  a  sentimental  regr?t  with  certain  European  students  of  American 
History  that  the  colonies  of  America,  after  acquiring  their  independence,  did 
not  establish  a  single  and  compact  nationality.  The  philosophy  of  these  opti- 
mists is  that  the  State  institutions  were- perpetual  schools  of  provincialism,  self-  j 
ishness  and  discontent,  and  that  they  were  constantly  educating  the  people  for 
the'disruption  of  that  Union  which  was  only  a  partial  and  incomplete  expres- 
sion of  th->  nationality  of  America.  These  men  indulge  the  idea  that  America, 
as  a  nation,  would  have  been  colossal;  that  its  wonderful  mountains  anfl  river-, 
its  vast  stretch  of  terrritory,  its  teeming  wealth,  and  the  almost  boundless  mili- 
tary resources,  which  the  present  war  has  developed  and  proved,  would  then 
have  been  united  in  one  picture  of  grandeur,  and  in  a  single  movement  of 
sublime,  irresistible  progress. 

These  are  pretty  dreams  of  ignorance.  Those  who  ascribe  to  the  State  insti- 
tutions of  America  our  present  distractions,  and  discover  in  them  the  nurseries 
of  the  exisfmg  war,  are  essentially  ignoraut  of  our  political  history.  They  are 
strangers  to  the  doctrines  of  Calhofrn  of  South  Carolina— the  first  name  in  -the 
political  literature  of  our  old  government— the  first  man  who  raised  the  party 
controversies  of  America  to  the  dignity  of  a  political  jjiilosophy  and  illuminated 
them  with  the  lights  of  the  patient  and  accomplished  scholar. 

The  great  political  discovery  of  Mr.  Calhoun  was  this  :  that  the  Flights  of 
the  States  was  the  only  solid  foundation  of  the  -Union  f  and  that,  so  far  from 
being  antagonistic  to  it,  they  constituted  its  security,  realized  its  perfection,  and 
gave  to  it  all  the  moral  beauty  with  which  it  appealed  to  the  affections  of  the 
people.  It  was  in  this  sense  that  the  great  South  Carolina  statesman,  so  fre- 
quently calumniated  as  "  nullifier,"  agitator,  kc,  was  indeed  the  real  and 
devoted  friend  of  the  American  Union.  He  maintained  the  nights  of  the 
States— the  sacred  distribution  of  powers  between  them  and  the  general  gov- 
ernment—as the  life  of  the  Union,  and  its  bond  of  attachment  in  the  hearts  of 
the  people.     And  in  this  he  was  right.  #  The  State  institutions  of  America, 

2-5 


properly  regarded,  were  not  discordant;  nor  were  they  unfortunate  elements  in 
our  political  life.  They  gave  certain  occasions  to  the  divisions  of  industry ; 
they  were  instruments  of  material  prosperity ;  thef  were  schools  of  pride  and 
emulation;  above  all,  they  were  the  true  guardians  of  the  Union,  keeping  it 
from  degenerating  into  that  vile  and  short-lived  government  in  which  power  is 
consolidated  in  a  mere  numerical  majority. 

Mr-. Calhoun's  so-called  doctrine  of  Nullification  is  one  of  the  highest  proofs 
ever  oiven  by  any  American  statesman  of  attachment  to  the  Union.  The 
assertion  is  not  made  for  paradoxical  effect.  It  is  clear  enough  iu  history  read 
in  the  severe  type  of  facts,  without  the  falsehoods  and  epithets  of  that  Yankee 
literature  which  has  so  long  defamed  us,  distorted  our  public  men,  and  misrep- 
resented us,  even  to  ourselves. 

The  so-called  and  miscalled  doctrine  of  Nullification  marked  one  of  the  most 
critical  periods  in  the  controversies  of  America,  and  constitutes  one  of  the  most 
curious  studies  for  its  philosophic  historian.     Mr.   Calhoun  was  unwilling  to 
offend  the  popular  idolatry  of  the  Union;  he  sought  a  remedy  for  existing  evils 
short  of  disunion,  and  the  consequence  was  what  was  called,  by  an  ingenious 
slander,  or  a  contemptible  stupidity,  Nullification.     His  doctrine  was,  in  fact, 
an  accommodation  of  two  sentiments :    that  of  Yankee  injustice  and  that  of 
reverence  of  the  Union.     He  proposed  to  save  the  Union  by  the  simple  and 
august  means  of  an  apfeal  to  tHe  sovereign  States  that  composed  it.     He  pro- 
posed that  should  the  general  government  and  a  State  come  into  conflict,  the 
power  should  be  invoked  that  called  the  general  government  into  existence,  and 
gave  it  all  of  its  authority.     In  such  a  case,  said  Mr.  Calhoun,  "  the  States 
themselves  may  be  appealed   to,  three-fourths '  of  which,  in  fact,  form  a  power 
whose  decrees  are  the  Constitution  itself,  and  whose  voice  can  silence  all  dis- 
'content.     The  utmost  extent,  then,  of  the  power  is,  that  a  State  acting  in  its 
sovereign  capacity,  as  one  of  the  parties  to   the  constitutional  compact,  may 
compel  the -government  created  by  that  compact  to  submit  a  question  touching 
"  its  infraction  to  the  parties  who  created  it,"     He  proposed*  a  peculiar,  conserva- 
tive and  noble  tribunal  for  the  controversies  that  agitated  the  country  and 
threatened  the  Union.     He  was  not  willing  that  vital  controversies  between  the 
sovereign   States  and  the  general   government   should    be  submitted   to   the 
Supreme  Court,  which  properly  excluded  political  questions,  and  comprehended 
those  only  where  there  were  parties  amenable  to  the  process  of  the  court.    This 
was  the  length  and  breadth  of  .Nullification.     It  was  intended   to   reconcile 
impatience  of  Yankee  injustice,  and  that  sentimental  attachment  to  the  Union 


whkji  colours  so  much  of  American  politics ;  it  resisted  the  suggestion  of  revo-  . 
j^tion  ;   it  clung  to  the  idolatry  of  the  Union,  and  marked   that  passage  in 
American  history  in  which  there  was  a  combat  between  reason  and  that  idolatry, 
and  in  which  that  idolatry  made  a  showy,  but  ephemeral  conquest. 

The  doctrine,  then,  of  Mr.  Calhoun  was  this  :  He  proposed  only  to  consti- 
tute a  conservative  and  constitutional  Carrier  to  Yankee  aggression;  and,  so  far 
from  destroying-  the  Union,  proposed  to  erect  over  it  the  permanent  and  august 
guard  of  a  tribunal  of  those  sovereign  powers  which  had  created  it.  It  was 
this  splendid,  but  hopeless  vision  of  the  South  Carolina  statesman  which  the 
North  slandered"  with  the  catch-word  of  Nullification  )  which  Northern  orators 
made  the  text  of  indiguatfon;  on  which  Mr.  AVebster  piped  his  school-boy 
rhetoric;  and  on  which  the  more  modern  schools  of  New  England  have 
exhausted  the  lettered  resouroes  of  their  learned  blacksmiths  and  Senatorial 
shoemakers.  Mr.  "Webster,  the  representative  of  that  imperfect  and  insolent 
education  peculiar  to  New  England,  Spears  never  to  have  known  that  Mr.  Cal- 
houn's doctrine  was  not  of  his  own-  origination ;  that  its  suggestion,  at  least, 
came  from  one  of  the  founders  of  the  republic.  We  refer  to  that  name  which 
is  apostolic  in  the  earliest  party  divisions  of  America,  and  the  enduring  orna- 
ment of  Virginia — Thomas  Jefferson,  the  Sage  of  Monticello.  At  a  late  period 
of  his  life,  Mr.  Jefferson  said :  u  With  respect  to  our  State  and  Federal  gov- 
*  ernments,  I  do  not  think  their  relations  are  correctly  understood  by  foreigners. 
They  suppose  the  former  subordinate  to  the  latter.  This  is  not  the  case.  They 
are  co-ordinate  departments  of  one  simple  and  integral  whole.  But  you  may 
ask  if  the  two  departments  should  claim  each  the  same  subject  of  power,  where 
mn  the  umpire  to  decide  between  them?  In  cases  of  little  urgency  or  impor- 
tance, the  .prudence  of  both  parties  will  keep  them  aloof  from  the  questionable 
ground ;  but,  if  it  can  neither  be  avoided  nor  compromised,  a  Convention  of 
the  States  must  be  called  to  ascribe  the  doubtful  power  to  that  department 
which  they  may  think  best." 

Here  was  the  first  suggestion  of  the  real  safety  of  the  Union;  and  it  iras 
this  suggestion,  reproduced  by  Calhoun,  which  the  North  slandered  as  Nullifi- 
cation, insulted  as  heresy,  and  branded  as  treason. 

It  is  a  remarkable  circumstance  that  the  South  should  have  tamely  allowed  the 
Yankees  to  impose  upon  her  political  literature  certain  injurious  terms,  and  should 
have  adopted  them  to  her  own  prejudice  and  shame.  The  world  takes  its  im- 
pression fYoni  names;  and  the  false  party  nomenclature  which  the  North  so 
easily  fastened  upon  us,  and  which  survives  even  in  this  war,  has  bad  a  nio^t 


important  influence  in  obscuring  our  history,  and  especially  in  soliciting  the 
prejudices  of  Europe.  • 

The  proposition  of  Mr. .  Calhoun  to  protect  the  Union  by  a  certain  consti- 
tutional and  conservative  barrier,  the  North  designated  Nullification,  and  the 
South  adopted  a  name  which  was  both  a^  falsehood  and  a  slander.  The  well 
guarded  and  moderate  system  of  negro  servitude  in  the  South,  the  North  called 
Slavery;  and  this  false  and  accursed  name  has  been  permitted  to  pass  current  in 
European  literature,  associating  and  carrying  with  it  the  horrours  of  barbarism, 
and  defiliiig  us  in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  The  Democratic  party  in  the  South^ 
which  claimed  equality  undej  the  Constitution,  as  a  principle,  and  not  merely  as 
a  selfish  interest,  was  branded  by  the  North  as  a  Pro-Slavery  party,  and  the 
South  submitted  to  the  designation. 

How  little  that  great  party  deserved  this  title  was  well  illustrated  in  the 
famous  Kansas  controversy ;  for  the  history  o?  that  controversy  was  simply  this : 
the  South  struggled  for  the  principle  of  equality  in  the  Territories,  without  refer- 
ence to  the  selfish  interests  of  so-called  Slavery,  and  even  with  the  admission  of 
the  hopelessness  of  those  interests  in  Kansas;  while  the  North  contended  for 
the  narrow,  selfish,  practical  consequence  of  making  Kansas  a  part  of  her  Free- 
Soil  possessions.  The.  proofs  of  this  may  be  made  in  two  brief  extracts  from 
these  celebrated  debates.  These  are  so  full  of.  historical  instruction  that  they 
supply  a  place  here  much  better  than  any  narrative  or  comment  could  do: 

Mr.  English,  of  Indiana. — I  think  I  may  safely  say  that  ther*e  is  not  a  Southern  man 
within  the  sound  of  my  voice  who  will  not  vote  for  the  admission  of  Kansas  as  a  Free 
State,  if  she  brings  here  a  Constitution  to  that  effect.     Is  there  a  Southern  man  here 
who  will  vote  against  the  admission  tof  Kansas  as  a  Free  State,  if  it  be  the'  undoubted  W 
will  of  the  people  of  that  Territory  that  it  shall  be  a  Free  State? 

Maxy  Members. — N-ot  one. 

At  another  stage  of  the  Kansas  debate  occurs  the  following : 

Mr.  Barksdale,  of  Mississippi.— I  ask  you  gentleman  on  the  other  side  of  the  House, 
of  the  Black  Republican  party,  would  you  vote  for  the  admission  of  Kansas  into  the 
U,nion,  with  a  Constitution  tolerating  Slavery,  if  a  hundred  thousand  people  there 
wished  it  ? 

Mr.  Giddijtgs,  of  Ohio. — I  answer  the  gentleman  that  I  will  never  associate,  politi- 
cally, with  men  of  that  character,  if  I  can  help  it.  I  will  never  vote  to  compel  Ohio  to 
associate  with  another  Slave  State,  if  I  can  prevent  it. 

*  *  *  *  *  *.*  #■* 

Mr,  Stanton.— I  will  say,  if  the  gentleman,  will  allow  me,  that  the  Republican  mem- 


bers  of  this  House,  so  far  as  I  know,  will  never  vote  foe  the  admission  of  any  Slave 
State  north  of  3fe°  30'.  * 

We  return  to  the  influence  of  State  institutions  on  America.  We  contend 
that  they 'were  not  hostile  to  the  Union,  or  malignant  in  their  character;  .that 
on  the  contrary,  they  were  auxiliary  lo  the  Union ;  that  they  stimulated  the 
national  progress  j  that,  in  fact,  they  interpreted  the  true  glory  of  America ;  and 
that  it  was  especially  these  modifications  of  ouirnational  life  which  gave  to  the 
Union  that  certain  moral  sublimity  so  long  the  theme  of  American  politicians. 
From  these  propositions  we  advance  to  a  singular  conclusion.  It  is  that  the 
moral  veneration  of  the  Union,  which  gives  the  key  to  so  much  of  American 
history,  was  peculiarly  a  sentiment  of  the  South  ;  while  in  the  North  it  was  noth- 
ing more  than  a  mere  affectation. 

This  may  sound  strange  to  those  who  have  read  American  history  in  the  smooth 
surface  of  Yankee  books ;  who  remember  Webster's  apostrophes  to  the  glorious 
Union,  and  Everett's  silken  rhetoric  j  whose  political  education  has  been  manu- 
factured to  hand  by  the  newspapers,  and  clap-traps  of  Yankee  literature  about 
u nullification"  and  treason.  But  it  is  easy  of  comprehension.  The  political  ideas 
of  the  North  excluded  that  of  any  peculiar  moral  character  about  the  Union ; 
the  doctrine  of  State  Rights  was  rejected  by  them  for  the  prevalent  notion 
that  America  was  a  single  democracy ;  thus,  the  Union  to  them  was  nothing 
more  than  a  geographical  name,  entitled  to  no  peculiar  claims  upon  the  affections 
of  the  people.  It  was  different  with  the  South.  The  doctrine  of  State  Rights 
gave  to  the  Union  its  mor^l  dignity ;  this  doctrine  was  th^  only  real  possible 
source  of  sentimental  attachment  to  the  Union;  and  this  doctrine  was  the 
received  opinion  of  the  Southern  people,  and  the  most  marked  peculiarity  of 
their  politics.  The  South  did  not  worship  the  Union  in  the  bas<*  spirit  of  com- 
mercial idolatry,  as  a  painted  machinery  to  secure  tariffs  and  bounties,  and  to 
aggrandize  a  section.  She  venerated  the  Union  because  she  discovered  in  it  a 
sublime  moral  principle ;  because  she  regarded  it  as  a  peculiar  association  in 
•which  sovereign  States  were  held  by  high  considerations  of  good  faith ;  by  the 
exchanges  of  equity  and  comity  j  by  the  noble  attractions  of  social  order;  by 
the  enthused  sympathies  of  a  common  destiny  of  power,  honour  and  renown.  It 
was  this  galaxy  which  trie  South  wore  upon  her  "heart,  and  before  the  clustered 
fires  of  whose  glory  she  worshipped  with  an  adoration  almost  Oriental.  That 
Union  is  now  dissolved ;  that  splendid  galaxy  of  stars  is  no  more  in  the  heaven^; 
and  where  once  it  shone,  the  fierce  comet  of  war  has  burst,  and  writes  a  red 
history  on  the  azure  page. 


8 

But  Jet  this  be  said  by  the  historian  of  this  war  f  that  the.  South  loved  the 
Union •  dissolved  it  Unwillingly ;  and,  though  she  had  had  the  political  admin- 
istration of  it  in  her.  hands  during  most  of  its  existence,  surrendered  it  without 
a  blot  on  its  fame.  "Do  not  forget/'  said  a  Southern  Senator,  when  Mr.  Seward 
boasted  in  the  United  Slates  Senate. that  the  North  was  about  to  take  control  at 
Washington,  ait  can  never  be  forgotten-»-it  is  written  on  the  brightest  page  of* 
human  history — that  we,  the  slaveholders  of  the  South,  took  our  country  in  her 
infancy,  and,  after  ruling  her  for  sixty  out  of  the  seventy  years  of  her  existence, 
we  shall  surrender  her  to  *ou  without  a  stain  upon  he*  honour,  boundless  in 
prosperity,  incalculable  in  her  strength,  the  wonder  and  the  admiration  of  the 
world.*  Time  will  show  what  you  will  make  of  her;  but  no  time  can  ever 
.  diminish  our  glory  or  your  responsibility." 

But  there  is  one  conclusive  argument  which  we  may  apply  to  the  common 
European  opinion,  and  the  half-educated  notion  of  this  coimtry  that  the  State 
institutions  of  America  were  schools  of  provinci§lism  and  estrangement.  If  such 
had  been  the  case,  the  dissolution  of  the  Union  would  have  found  the  States 
that  composed  it  a  number  of  petty  principalities  opposed  to  each  other,  or,  at 
least,  diverse  and  heterogeneous.  But  this  war  has  found  no  such  thing.  It 
has  found  the  people  of  Virginia  and  Tennessee,  the  people  of  Missouri  and 
South  Carolina  entertaining  the  same  political  ideas,  pursuing  a  single,  common 
.object  in  the  war,  and  baptizing  it  in  a  common  bloodshed  on  its  fields  of  con- 
test and  carnage.  The  States  of  the  Southern  Confederacy  offer  to  the  world 
the  example  of  its  inhabitants  as  one  people,  hornogenogus  in  their  social  systems, 
alike  in  their  ideas,  and  unanimous  in  their  resolves  •  and  the  States  of  the 
North  afford  similar  illustrations  of  national  unity.  The  war  has  found  not  dis- 
cordant States,  but  two  distinct  nations,  in  the  attitude  of  belligerents,  differing 
-in  blood,  in  race,  in  social  institutions,  in  systems  of  popular  instruction,  in  political 
education  and  theories,  in  ideas,  in  manners  ■  and  the  whole  sharpened  by  a  long 
and  fierce  political  controversy,  that  lias  arrayed  them  at  last  as  belligerents,  and 
interposed  the  gage  of  armed  and  bloody  contest.  .  The  development  of  America 
has  been  a  North  and  a  South  •  not  discordant  States,  but  hostile  nations.  The 
present  war  is  not  for  paltry  theories  of  political  parties,  or  for  domestic  institu- 
tions, or  for  rival  administrations,  but  for  the  vital  ideas  gf  each  belligerent,  and 
the  great  stakes  of  national  existence.  .  • 

What  have  been  the  ideas' which  the  North  has-  developed  or  illustrated  in 
.  this  war  ?     We  will  answer  briefly. 

The  Nor-th  presents  to  the  world  the  example  of  a  people  corrupted  by  a 


gross  material  prosperity ;  their  ideas  of  government,  a  low  and  selfish  utilita- 
rianism; their  conceptions  of  civilization,  prosperous  railroads,  penny  news- 
papers, showy  churches.  Their  own  estimates  of  their  civilization  never  pene- 
trated beyond  the  mere  surface  and  convenience  of  society;  never  took  into 
account  its  unseen  elements :  the  public  virtue,  the  public  spirit,  the  conserva- 
tive principle,  the  love  of  order,  the  reverence  of  the  past,  all  which  go  to  make  * 
up  the*grand  idea  of  human  civilization. 

It  is  amusing  to  the  student  of  history  to  hear  Mr.  Sumner,  of  Massachusetts, 
asserting,  with  scholarly  flourishes,  that  the  South  is  barbarous,  because  she  has 
no  free  schools :  the  sources  of  that  half  education  in  the  3*orth,  which  nave 
been  nurseries  of  insolence,  irreverence  of  the  past,  infidelity  in  religion,  and 
an  itch  for  every  new  idea  in  the  mad  calendar  of  social  reforms.  It  is  yet 
more  amusing  to  hear  his  Senatorial  peer — <•  the  Natick  cobbler."  When,  on 
the'  eve  of  the  downfall  of  the  government  at  Washington,  a  Southern  Senator 
depicted»the  wealth  that  the  South  had  poured  into  the  lap  of  the  Union,  the 
elements  it  had  contributed  to  its  civilization,  and  the  virtues  it  had  brought  to 
its  adornment,  Mr.  Wilson,  of  Massachusetts,  had  this  reply:  "  Massachusetts 
has  more  religious  newspapers  than  all  the  slaveholding  States  of  the  Union." 

The  people  of  the  North  have  never  studied  politics  as  a  moral  science.  They 
have  no  idea  of  government  as  an  independent  principle  of  truth,  virtue  and 
honour;  to  them  it  is  merely  an  engine  of  material  prosperity — a  mere  auxiliary  * 
appendage  to  a  noisy,  clattering  world  of  trade,  and  steam,  and  telegraphs.  It 
is  this  lew  commercial  sense  of  government  which  developed  all  the  old  Yankee 
theories  of  tariffs,  and  bounties,  aud  free  farms. 

Indeed,  the  most  fruitful  study  in  American  politics  is  the  peculiar  material- 
istic idea  of  the  Yankee.  Its  developments  are  various,  but  all  held  together 
by  the  same-Heading  idea:  superficial  notions  of  civilization;  agrarian  theories; 
the  subordination  of  the  principles  of  government  to  trade ;  mercantile  "  states- 
manship];" the  exclusion  of  moral  ideas  from  politics ;  the  reduction  of  the  whole 
theory  of  society  to  the  base  measure  of  commercial  'interests.  Such  are  -some 
of  the  developments  of  the  materialistic  idea :  the  last  and  fullest  is  the  present 
war. 

This  war,  on  the  part  of  the  Yankee,  is  essentially  a  war  of  interest :  hence 
its  negation,  on  his  part,  of  all  principles  and  morals;  hence  its  adoption  of  that 
coarse  maxim  of  commercial  Casuistry,  "the  end- justifies  the  means;"  hence  its 
treachery,  its  arts  of  bad  faith,  its  "cuteness"  on  all  belligerent  questions; 
hence  its  atrocities  which  have  debased  the  rulfcs  of  civilized  warfare  to  a  code 


10 

of  assassins  and  brigands.  It  is  true  that  the  North  has  affected  in  this  war 
such  sentiments  as  love  of  the  Union,  reverence  of  the  American  nationality, 
a  romantic  attachment  to  the  old  flag.  But  we  repeat  that  the  proof  that  the 
North  has  fought  for  coarse,  material  interests  in  this  war  is  the  conduct  of 
the  war  itself. 

"War  is  horrible  ;  but  it  has  its  laws  of  order  and  amelioration.  Civilization 
has  kindled  the  dark  cloud  of  horrours  with  the  vestal  observances  of  honour  > 
and  the  undying  lights  of  humanity  have  irradiated  its  aspects — softened  the 
countenance  of  the  Giant  who 

"  On  the  mountain  stands,'  %  4 

His  blood-red  tresses  deepening  in  the  sun, 
With  death-shot  glowing  in  his  fiery  hands." 

But  where,  in  this  war  of  the  Yankee,  shall  we  find  exhibitions  of  the  chivalry 
and  amenity  of  modern  belligerents.    A  ghostly  echo  comes  shrieking  from  fields 
blackened  by  fire,  and  scarred  and  tormented  with  the  endless  scourge  of  the 
tyrant.     The  characteristics  of  the  Yankee  war  are  precisely  those  which  arise 
out  of  the  materialistic  idea :  treachery  dignified  as  genius,  and  cruelty  set  up 
to  gaze  as  the  grandeur  of  power.    The  crooked  woof  of  treachery — the  scarlet 
thread  of  the  lie — have  Been  woven  by  the  Yankee  into  every  part  of  ihis  war. 
,It  is  not  necessary  to  unravel  here  the  whole  story  of  Yankee  falsehood.     One 
instance*will  suffice.     The  government  which,  a't  the  commencement  of  hostili- 
ies,  played  at  the  game  of  conciliation  by  affecting  to  arrest  on  the  streets  of  its 
capital,  Washington,  fugitive  slaves,  and  to  return  them  to  their  masters;  which ; 
in 'the  first  months  of  the  war,  declared  that  it '"repudiated  all  designs  whatever 
and  wherever  imputed  to  it  of  disturbing  the  system  of  slavery;"  that  any  such 
•effort  would  be  "unconstitutional;"  and  that  "all  the  acts  of  the  President  in 
that  direction  would  be  prevented  by  the  judicial  authority,  even  though  they 
were  assented  to  by  Congress  and  the  people" — for  such  was  the  solemn  assur- 
ance of  Mr.  SeWard's  diplomatic  circular  of  1861;  which  promised  the  South 
"  the  Constitution  as  it  was,"  and  recited  poetrv  in  Congress  entreating  South 
Carolina  to  return  to  the  bosom  of  the  Union,  is  to-day  found  making  the  boast — i 
rather  we  may  say  indulging  the  fiendish  exultation — that  it  has  Abolitionized 
every  district  it  has  invaded ;  that  it  has  forced  into  military  service  one  hundred 
thousand  blacks,  stolen  from  their  masters;  that  it  has  forcibly  consigned  them 
from  peaceful  occupations  to  the  perils  of  the  battle-field ;  and  that  it  has  whetted 
their  ignorant  and  savage  natures  with  an  appetite  for  the  blood  of  the  white 


11  • 

mamof  the  Confederacy.  And  this  stupendous  lie  is  called  the  genius  of  Yankee 
statesmanship,  and  the  world  is  asked  to  applaud  it ! 

But  it  is  in  the  atrocious  warfare  of  the  enemy  that  we  find  the  most  striking 
instances  of  his  exclusion  of  that  noble  spirituality  common  to  the  great  con- 
flicts tff  civilized  nations,  and  the  most  characteristic  evidence  of  the  brutal 
selfishness  of  his  hostilities.  The  Yankee  has  never  shown  mercy  in  this  war 
and  not  one  touch  of  refinement  from  his  hand  has  relieved  its  horrours.  The 
track  of  his  armies  has  been  marked  by  the  devouring  flame,  or  by  the  insatiate 
plunder  and  horrid  orgies  of  a  savage  and  cowardly  foe.  The  weed-growth  of 
Louisiana,  where  once  flourished  the  richest  plantations  of  the  South;  the  desert 
that  itretches  from  the  Big  Black  to  the  Mississippi,  once  a  beautiful  expanse 
of  happy  Glomes;  the  black,  mangled  belt  of  territory  that,  commencing  at 
Harper's  Ferry,  extends  to  Fortress  Monroe,  bound  like  a  ghastly  pall  with  the 
silver  fringe  of  the  Potomac;  these  are  the  hideous  monuments  of  partial  con- 
quest which  the  Yankee  has  committed  to  the  memory  of  the  world  and  to  the 
inscriptions  of  History.  "What  has  been  safe  in  this  war  from  the  grasp  of  his 
plunder  or  the  touch  of  his  desecration  ?  In*  the  districts  of  the  Confederacy 
where  his  soldiers  have  penetrated  they  have  appropriated  or  destroyed  private 
property ;  they  have  stolen  even  works  of  art  and  ornament ;  they  have  plun- 
dered churches ;  they  have  desecrated  the  grave  and  despoiled  the  emblems 
which  love  has  consecrated  to  honour.  And  all  this  has  been  done  according 
to  a  peculiar  theory  of  hostilities  which  makes  of  war  a  sensual  selfishness,  and 
contemplates  its  objects  as  a  savage  gain  of  blood  and  plunder.  This  is  the 
true  and  characteristic  conception  of  the  Yankee.  He  is  taught  by  his  political 
•education,  by  his  long  training  in  the  crooked  paths  of  thrift,  that  all  the  prin- 
ciples 0/  civilized  usage  are  to  be  set  at  naught,  when  convenience  and  present 
policy  mterfere  with  their  fulfilment. 

It  is  in  this  sense  of  narrow,  materialistic  expediency  that  the  Yankee  has 
surrendered  his  liberties  in  this  war,  and  proclaimed  the  enormous  doctrine  that 
the  Constitution  under  which  he  lives,  and  all  his  other  muniments  of  liberty, 
are  suspended  by  the  paramount  necessity  of  conquering  and  despoiling  the 
South.  He  has  carried  his  commercial  politics  in  the  war,  and  trades  his  own 
liberties  for  the  material  rewards  of  an  otherwise  vain  and  fruitless  conquest. 

But  we  leave  the  subject  of  the  Yankee  to  turn  to  the  other  side  of  the  ques^ 
tion,  and  inquire  what  new  political  ideas  the  South  has  developed  in  this  war. 
Here  is  an  extraordinary  blank.  In- the  new  government  of  the  Confederacy 
we  do  not  discover  any  statesmanship,  any  financial  genius,  any  ideas  beyond 


•  12 

what  are  copied  from  the  old  effete  systems  that,  it  was  thought,  the  revolution 
replaced.  There  must  be  some  explanation  of  this  absence  of  new  ideas,  this 
barren  negation  in  our  revolution. 

By  a  misfortune,  not  easily  avoided,  the  new  government  of  the  Confederacy 
fell  into  the  hands  of  certain  prominent  partizans,  but  mediocre  politicians, 
who  made  a  servile  copy  of*  the  old*  Yankee  Constitution ;  who  had  no  ideas  of 
political  administration  higher  than  the  Washington  routine;  and  who,  by  their 
ignorance  and  conceit,  have  blindfolded  and  staggered  the  devolution  fmm  its 
commencement.  This  observation  gives  the  kej  to  the  political  history  of  the 
Confederacy  in  this  war.  A  servile  copy  of  old  political  ideas,  an  ape  of  the 
Washington  administration,  without  genius,  without  originality,  rejecting  the 
counsel's  of  the  intelligent,  and  living  in  its  own  little  circle  of  conceit,  the  Con- 
federate government  has  fallen  immeasurably  below  the  occasion  of  this  revolu- 
tion, and  misrepresents  alike  its  spirit  and  its  objects. 

But  this  weak,  negative  government  of  the  Confederacy  is  but  the  early  acci- 
dent of  this  revolution;  and  the  people  endure  the  accident  of  their  present 
rulers  merely  from  patriotic  scruples  which  contemplate. imnidfiiate  exigencies. 
We  stand  but  on  the  threshold  of  this  revolution,  and  the  curtain  falls  over  a 
grand  future  of  new  ideas.  Those  who  expect  that  it  will  terminate  with  the 
mere  formality  of  a  treaty  with  the  public  enemy,  and.  that  we  shall  then  have 
a  plodding  future  of  peace,  a  repetition  of  old  political  ideas  and  manners,  have 
got  their  pleasant  phUosopy  from  newspaper  articles  arid  street  talk ;  t^ey  have 
never  read  the  exalted  and  invariable  lesson  of  history,  that,  on  commotions  as 
immense  as  this  war — no  matter  what  its  particular  occasion — there  are  reared 
those  new  political  struclures  which  mark  the  ages  of  public  progress.  If  it 
was  true  that  this  war,  with  its  immense  expenditures  of  blood  and  treasure, 
was  merejy  to  determine  the  status  of  negroes  in  the  South — merely  If  settle 
the  so-called  Slavery .  question — there  is  not  an  intelligent  man  in  the  Con- 
federacy but  would  spit  upon  the  sacrifice.  If  it  was  true  that  this  terrible  war 
was  merely  to  decide  between  two  political  administrations  of  the  same  model, 
then  the  people  of  the  Confederacy  would  do  right  to  abandon  it.     « 

■  Political  novelty  will  come  soon  enough  :  it  is  the  inevitable  offspring  of  such 
commotions  as'this  war.  We  repeat  that  the  Confederacy  is  now  barren  of  polit- 
ical ideas,  because  those  who  are  accidentally  its  rulers  are,  without  originality 
or  force,  copyists  of  old  rotten  systems,  and  the  apes  of  routine  ;  and  because 
the  public  mind  of  the  South  is  now  too  forcibly  engrossed  with  the  public 
enemy,  either  to  replace  their  authority  or  to  chastise  their  excesses.  It  is  under 


13 

these  peculiar  restraints  that  the  Confederacy  has  produced  such  little  political 
novelty  in  this  war. 

But  the  revolution  is  not  yet  past.  .Those  exalted  historical  inspirations, 
which,  with  rapt  souls  and  kindled  blood,  we  read  in  the  printed  pages  of  the 
past,  are  this  day,  with  trumpet  sound,  at  our  doors.  We  live  in  great  times; 
we  are  in  the  presence  of  great  events;  we  stand  in  the  august  theatre  of  a 
national  tragedy.  This  struggle  cannot  pass  away,  until  the  great  ideas,  which 
the  public  danger  alone  holds  in  abeyance,  have  found  a  full  development  and 
a  complete  realization ;  until  the  South  vindicates  her  reputation  for  political 
science  and  eliminates  from  this  war  a  system  of  r government  more  ingenious 
than  a  Chinese  copy  of  Washington. 

But  while  we  thus  reflect  upon  the  intellectual  barrenness  of  this  war,  we 
must  not  for*|t  that,  while  the  Confederacy  in  this  time  has  produced  but  few 
new  ideas,  it  has.  brought  out  troops  of  virtues.  In  this  respect,  the  moral 
interest  of  the  war  is  an  endless  theme  for  the  historian;  and  we  may  be  par- 
doned for  leaving  our  immediate  subject  to  say  a  few  words  of  those  fields  of 
grandeur  in  wjiich  the  Confederacy  has  found  compensation  for  all  other 
short-comings,  and  stands  most  conspicuous  before  the  world. 

"We  have  put  into  the  field  soldiers  such  as  the  world  has  seldom  seen — men 
who,  half-clothed  and  half- fed,  have,  against  superiour  numbers,  won  two- thirds 
of  the  battles  of  this  war.  The  material  of  the  Confederate  army,  in  social 
worth,  is  simply  superiour  to  all  that  is  related  in  the  military  annals  of  man- 
kind. 'Men  of  wealth,  men  accustomed  to  the  fashions  of  polite  society,  men 
who  had  devoted  their  lives  to  learned  professions  and  political  studies,  have 
not  hesitated  to  shoulder  their  muskets  and  fight  as  privates  in  the  ranks  with 
the  hard-fisted  and  uncouth  labourer,  no  less  a  patriot  tnan  themselves.  Our 
army  presents  to  the  world,  perhaps,  the  only  example  of  theoretical  socialism 
reduced  to  ^practice  it  has  ever  seen,  and  realizes,  at  least  in  respect  of  defen- 
sive arms,  the  philosopher's  dream  of  fraternal  and  sympathetic  equality. 

The  hero  of  this  war  is  the  private  soldier  .*  not  the  officer  whose  drees  is 
embroidered  with  lace,  and  whose  name  garnishes  the^  gazette,  but  the  humble 
and  honest  patriot  of  the  South  in  his  dirt-stained  and  sweat-stained  clothes, 
who  toils  through  pain  and  hunger  and  peril;  who  has  no  reward  but  in  the 
satisfaction  of  good  deeds ;  who  throws  his  poor,  unknown  life  away  at  the  can? 
non's  mouth,  and  dies  in  that  single  flash  of  glory.  How  many  of  these  heroes 
.have  been  laid  in  unmarked  ground — the  nameless  graves  of  self-devotion 
But  the  ground-where  they  rest  is  in  the  sight  of  Heaven.     Nothing  ^ kisses 


14 

their  graves  but  the  sunlight ;  nothing  mourns  fcr  them  but  the  sobbing  wind ; 
nothing  adorns  their  dust  but  the  wild  flowers  that  have  grown  on  the  bloody 
crust  of  the  battle  field.  But  not  a  Southern  soldier  has  fallen  in  this  war 
without  the  account  of  Heaven,  and  Death  makes  its  registry  of  the  pure  and 
the  brave  on  the  silver  pages  of  immortal  life. 

It  is  said  that  some  of  our  people  in  this  wrar  have  cringed  beneath  disaster, 
and  compromised  with  misfortune.  These  are  exceptions :  they  may  be  sor- 
rowful ones.  But  in  this  war  the  people  of  the  Confederacy,  in  the  mass,  have 
shown  a  fortitude,  an  elasticity  under  reverse,  a  temperance  in  victory,  a  self- 
negation  in  misfortune,  a  heroic,  hopeful,  patient,  enduring,  working  resolution, 
which  challenge  the  admiration  of  the  world.  It  is  not  only  material  evils 
which  have  been  thus  endured  :  the  scourge  of  tyranny,  the  bitterness  of 
exile,  the  dregs  of  poverty.  But  the  most. beautiful  circumstance  of  all  is  the 
strange  resignation  of  our  people  in  that  worst  trial  and  worst  Tigouy  of  war — 
the  consignment  of  the  living  objects  of  their  love  to  the  bloody  altars  of  sacri- 
fice. These  are  the  real  horrours  of  war,  and  patriotism  has  no  higher  tribute 
to  pay  than  the  brave  and  uncomplaining  endurance  of  such  aeony. 

How  have  we  been  resigned  in  this  war  to  the  loss  of  our  loved  ones  !  How 
many  noble  sorrows  are  in  our  hearts  !  How  many  skeletons  are  in  our  closets  ! 
War  may  ruin  and  rifle  the  homestead  ;  may  scatter  as  chaff  in  the  wind  the 
property  of  years;  may  pronounce  the  doom  of  exile— but,  all  these,  are  paltry 
afflictions  in  comparison  witli  the  bereavement  of  kindred,  whose  blood  has 
.been  left  on  the  furze  of  the  field  and  the  leaves  of  frhe  forest,  and  whose 
uncofhned  bones  are  scattered  to  the  elements.  vp 

TTiere  is  a  picture  by  a  British  poet*  of  the  miseries  of  war  which  has  been 
so  touchingiy  realiz6d  in  the  experience  of  the  people  of  this  Confederacy  that 
it  might  be  imagined  to  have  been  written  directly  and  particularly  of  the 
struggle  in  which  we  are  engage!.  The  poet  describes  the  distant  home  of  the 
soldier  and  its  inmates  in  a  night  storm,  and  then  takes  the  imagination  to  the 
battle-field,  where  the  same  storm  is  the  witness  of  horrours  more  terrible  than 

the  elements :  .  • 

* 

'Tis  a  wild  night  out  of  doors  ; 
The  wind  is  mad  upon  the  moors, 
And  comes  into  the  rocking  town, 
Stabbing  all  things,  up  and  down, 

.*  Leigh  Hunt :   Captain  Sword  and  Captain  Pen; 


And  then  there  is  a  weeping  rain. 
Huddling  'gainst  the  window-pane, 
And  good  men  bless  themselves  in  bed ; 
The  mother  brings  her  infant's  head 
Closer,  with  a  joy  like  tears, 

And  thinks  of  angels  in  her  prayers  \  * 

Then  sleeps,  with  his  small  hand  in  hers. 

• 
Two  loving  women,  lingering  yet 
.  Ere  the  fire  is  ont,  are  met, 

Talking  sweetly,  time  beguiled,  • 

One  of  her  bridegroom,  one  her  child, 

The  bridegroom  he.     They  have  received 

Happy  letters,  more  believed 

For  public  news,  and  feel  the  bliss 

The  heavenlier  on  a  night  like  this 

They  think  him  housed,  they  think  him  blest. 

Curtain'd  in  the  care  of  rest, 

Danger  distant,  all  good  near  ; 

Why  hath  their  "Good  Xighti'  a  teat? 

Beheld  him  !     By  a  ditch  he  lies 
Clutching  the  wet  earth,  his  eyes 
Beginning  to  be  mad.     In  vain 
His  tongue  still  thirsts  to  lick  the  rain. 
That  mock'd.but  now  his  homeward  tears  ; 
z.  And  ever  and  anon  he  rears 

His  leg3  and  knees  with  all  their  strength, 
And  tiren  as  strongly  thrusts  at  length. 
Raised,  or  stretch'd,  he  cannot  bear 
The  wound  that  girds  him,  weltering  there; 
And  "Water!"  he  cries,  with  moonward  stare. 
'■*  *  *  *  *  * 

His  nails  are  in  earth,  Lis  eyes  in  air, 
And  "Water!"  he  crieth.  ' 

The  virtues  and  passions  of  the  South  in  this  war  are  not  idle  sentinieutali.-ms 
They  are  the  precursors  of  new  and  illustrious  ideas — the  sure  indications  of  a 
new  political  growth.  In  the  warmth  of  such  passions  arc  born  noble  and  robust 
ideas.  Thus  we  await  the  development  of  this  war  in  ideas,  in  political  struc- 
tures, in  laws  which  wii  honour  it,  and  for  which  we  shall  not  unduly  pay  the 
dreadful  price  of  blood. 


16 

It  is  impossible  that  a  nation  should  have  suffered  as  the  South  has  in  this 
struggle ;  should  have  adorned  itself  with  such  sacrifices  j  should  have  illustrated 
such  virtues,  to  relapse,  at  the  end,  into  the  old  routine  of  its  political. existence. 
"We  have  not  poured  out  our  tears — we  have  not  made  a  monument  of  broken 
hearts — weTiave  not  kneaded  the  ground  with  human  flesh  merely  for  the  poor 
negative  of  a  peace,  with  naught  higher  or  better  than  things  of  the  past.  Not 
so  does  nature  recompense  the  martyrdom  of  individuals  or  of  nations  :  it 
pronounces  the  triumph  of  resurrection. 

We  believe  that  a  new  name  is  to  be  inscribed  in  the  pantheon  of  history; 
not  that  of  an  old  idolatry.  All  now  is  ruin  and  confusion,  but  from  the  scat- 
tered elements  will  arise  a  new  spirit  of  beauty  and  order.  All  now  is  dark,  but 
the  cloud  will  break,  and  in  its  purple  gates  will  stand  the  risen  Sun. 


or  s 


THE  RIVAL  ADMINISTRATIONS: 

x  Peccaid  nocntium  nol.a  esse  oporttt  et'ezpedit. — Justinian. 

i . 

CONTENTS. 

I.j." Want  of  Capacity*?  in  the  Confederate  Administration. 
II.  Jefferson  Davis — Early  Prognostications  of  the  War. 
in.  The  Confederate  Finances. 

JV.  The  Military  Situation  in  the  Confederacy— Bernagogueisin. 
V.  Lincoln's  "Peace"  Proclamation. 
VI.  The  Slavery.  Question  in  the  War. 
VII.  HiBtory  of  the  "  Retaliation  "  Policr. 
VIII.  The  Last  Hope. 

I  NOTICES  OF  THE  PRESS. 

\  Fruni  the  Axigmta  Constitutionalist.} 
We  bare  read'  it  with  great  interest,  and  while  we  cannot  give  our  assent  to  all  <.f  the  a.uth_ 
views,  yet  we  cannot  but  feel  that  the  honest  spirit  of  criticism  which  characterizes  it  wirTbe 
producHre  of  good  to  the  cause  of  the  country.     We  commend  the  pamphlet  to  the  reading- 
public  as  essentially  worthy  of  attention. 

[  From  the  Ckwrtesfon  Mercury,'] 
This  is  the  title  of  a  tart  and  well-written  production,  by  E.  A.  Pollard,  author  of  «  Black 
Diamonds."    The  pamphlet  is  a  scathing  review  of  the  enormities  of  the  one  administration  as 
contrasted  with  the  shortcomings  of  the  other. 

\  From  itif  Atlanta  Register,"] 
That  Mr,  Davis,  with  the  great  mass  of  his  countrymen,  failed  <o  foresee  the  result^  ten- 
dencies, magnitude,  duration,  and  necessary  adjuncts  of  this  war^cannot  be  denied.  On  one 
Occasion,,  at  least,in  an  official  paper,  the  President  confessed  that  he  had  not  anticipated  many 
necessities  arising  from  a  conflict  that  had  assumed  a  sliape  eo  extraordinary  in  all  its  needful 
appliances.     Of  many  of  thevfacts  stated  in  Mr.  Pollard's  pamphlet  there  can  be  no  question. 

[From  the  Sfoutgomery  JJalJ.\ 

Mr.  Pollard  i-  one  of  the  ablest  writer"  in  the  Oouderacy.    His  late  publication  is  a  scathing 

review  <»f  the  shortcomings  of  the  Executive  Department  of  the  Government,  and  while  some 

may  dis.ent  Iroui  the  harshness  of  his  criticism,  none  will  deny  the  force  and  point  with  which 

Mr.  Pollard  diseusse-  the  question.     His  pamphlet  is!  destined  to  have  an  extensive  circulation. 

[From  the  CJmttanooga  Resell'] 
a   spirited  and  caustic  review  of  the  manner  in  which  our  Government  an'airs  have  been 
managed  and  mismanaged  from  the  commencement  of  the  rebellion  up  to  the  present  time. 

[  From  th«  Ohrtrleuton  Courier.  ] 
This  in  a  pamphlet  lately  issued  from  the  pointed  pen  of  E.  A.  Pollard,  author  of  '^Black 
Diamonds,"  "  First  Year  of  the  War,"  &-.  Many  readers  will  dissent  from  some  of  Mr.  Pol- 
lard's views,  but  none  will  deny  hi*  abilities  or  the  relevance  of  hi.-  conclusions  to  his  premies 
if  once  admitted  or  -established.  .No  one  will  go  to  sleep  over  this  pamphlet— unless  its  reading 
follows  a  good  do-e  of  atfodyne. 

1  I'yoin  tli>:  South  Oarolmfaiu]  , 
Prejudiced  or  m>i.  the  author  tells  the  truth  a<  he  believes  it;  and  while  some  mny  object  tn 
the  enunciation  of  opinions,  however  well  grounded,  at  a  period  when  they  can  do  little  practi- 
cal good  at  home  or  abroad,  we  must,  at  the  same  time,  admit  that  his  arguments  are  cogent  and 
many  of  his  facts  are  irrefutable.  *  *  *  *  Few,  however,  will  swallow  a  pill  that  is  not 
sugar-coated  without  making  wry  faces. 

Sold  at  all  the  Bookstore-.     Pri-e.  One  Dollar.     Sent  to  any  part  of  the  tJoni'ederacv.  post- 
paid, for  One  Dollar.     Trade  Order    Fberally  discounted. 

Address,  PBOP:v    rrt'OR  <»F  CONFEDERATE  READING  ROOM, 

Richmond,  Ya. 

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